WHEN Donna Franceschild looks back at the impact made by her drama Takin’ Over The Asylum, she is spoilt for choice.

It could be the platform it provided for the careers of David Tennant and Ken Stott.

The Bafta the BBC drama picked up for best serial in 1995.

Or the role it played in challenging the way mental illness was portrayed in the media.

Or was it when our readers decided to give the drama that week’s top TV accolade – the Sunday Mail roses?

Donna, who has now adapted her TV drama for the theatre, said: “I was living in London and somebody came to the door and I was given these roses from the Sunday Mail.

“Of all the accolades we had at the time, that one meant the most because it was voted for by viewers. It was kind of a sign that we weren’t just talking to ourselves.”

The blooms were courtesy of our Rasps and Roses TV column when a bunch of flowers went to readers’ best programme of the week and a tin of raspberries to the worst.

Takin’ Over The Asylum was a six-part blackly humorous tale on BBC2 about double-glazing salesman turned DJ Ready Eddie McKenna who bands together with a group of patients to revive a radio station at a psychiatric hospital.

Dealing with the subject matter of mental illness made people nervous and, when it was eventually screened, it was up against European football on BBC1 and Soldier, Soldier on ITV – one of the channel’s big-hitters at the time.

It still won critical acclaim, an overwhelmingly positive audience reaction and a Bafta.

But the Beeb should have got our raspberries after bosses only gave it one late-night repeat, again on BBC2, before putting it on the shelf to gather dust.

The new play is a co-production between Glasgow’s Citizens and Edinburgh’s Lyceum theatres.

It marks a new chapter in a comeback which gathered pace when fans started to post clips of the show on the internet, leading to a belated DVD release in 2008.

Donna said: “It only happened because of YouTube. It came mainly through the David Tennant connection. People didn’t have to stay with it but they did and were writing these great comments.”

While the world has changed since Takin’ Over The Asylum was first aired in 1994 – and the stage play reflects a world connected to the internet – some things remain the same. One is the sweet soul music which provides the soundtrack to the drama. The other is attitudes towards mental illness.

While some things have improved since 1994 in terms of how mental health is treated, problems remain, not least with the Government’s fit-to-work tests for people claiming disability benefits.

As someone who is bipolar, Donna, 49, knows what she’s talking about.

She said: “People with mental health problems are still stigmatised. We see this government telling people with severe mental health problems that they should be out working.

“My God, if you have a mental health problem, you are already finding it difficult to function in the world and you have really low self-esteem.

“So you take those people and put them through this stressful process and threaten to cut off their money?

“They are being demonised as spongers, people who are pretending they have depression because they want to sit around all day watching daytime television.

“It’s the return of the old stigma – that these people should be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

“Does it make the play more relevant? Yes, for example, the storyline about the character Fergus trying to get a job is more prominent because it is topical.

“I did try to shift the focus on to things that are absolutely now. The whole idea is to set it now, which is very important. Otherwise it becomes a period piece about a problem which used to exist but doesn’t any more – that isn’t the case.”

If Takin’ Over The Asylum has changed, so have the fortunes of the original cast – not least Ken Stott, who played Ready Eddie, and David Tennant, who enjoyed his first major role as manic depressive Campbell.

Both have gone on to stellar careers – Stott starred in The Vice, Rebus and most recently The Hobbit and Tennant conquered the TV universe as Doctor Who.

Donna, whose own credits include Donovan Quick, A Mug’s Game and The Key, takes no credit for their subsequent careers but is proud to have worked with them.

She said: “I do take pride, although I didn’t cast it – the director, David Blair, did. It goes two ways because the series benefited from the fact Ken Stott and David Tennant played those parts. We were lucky.

“David Blair had worked with David on Strathblair, in which he had about four lines.

“When I was asking who we were going to cast in this massive role, he said, ‘I have someone in mind’.

“He was completely right. I am glad he was given that chance and I am proud to have worked with all of those people. There wasn’t a weak member of that cast.

“But I don’t feel as if I launched their careers. I just feel very grateful for what they gave – otherwise, it would have sunk without trace.”

If it puts pressure on the current cast, which includes Iain Robertson and former soap star Caroline Paterson, it is not showing.

She said: “It is a different beast and they are doing different things with it so hopefully they don’t feel intimidated.

“We were trying to find people who would give it something we didn’t expect and that’s very exciting.

? Takin’ Over the Asylum is at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, from Thursday to March 9 and at the Edinburgh Lyceum from March 13 to April 6.